As in the previous year, Aryna Sabalenka, fourth in the world rankings, reached the final of the clay court tennis tournament in Stuttgart.
Despite being significantly behind, the 23-year-old Belarusian tennis player won the semifinals against Paula Badosa from Spain, one year older than her, 7:6 (7:5), 6:4. Her final opponent on Sunday is the Polish world number one Iga Swiatek or the Russian outsider Lyudmila Samsonowa.
In the first set, Sabalenka turned a 2:5 deficit against the number two on the seeding list. The 2021 finalist was also 1: 4 behind in the tie-break. She immediately made up for her loss of serve at the beginning of the second set and used her first match point after 1:40 hours. Last year, Sabalenka missed out on winning the title at the most important German women’s tennis tournament in the final against the Australian Ashleigh Barty.
The hopes for the first German semi-finalist since 2017 had not been fulfilled. Laura Siegemund, who celebrated tournament victory five years ago, was eliminated in the quarter-finals as the last German participant against Samsonowa. For Angelique Kerber, losing the first round of the EUR 611,210 tournament meant another setback this season.